The Third Girl Detective

by Margaret Sutton

  “She is a very fine woman and consented to come with her mother, I understand, to make a home for Andy and give a cheerful atmosphere, needed particularly because his marriage was given up after the war. You need have no uneasiness about your ward so far as she is concerned. My family knows Mrs. Holt very well indeed.”

  “Well, thank you, this little conference has been very helpful. I must make my train now, but I felt that I wanted some assurance in regard to the family with whom I am leaving Jannet, before I could go back to my work with a clear conscience.”

  With this information, Miss Hilliard felt that a load had been rolled off, as she took the train back to New York, and later went on to Philadelphia with cheerful news for Miss Marcy and the other teachers who were especially interested in Jannet. “Yes, Jannet’s people seem to be all that we could desire,” she reported. Yet she was none the less interested in hearing what Jannet had to say about the household, and wondered over a vein of reserve in Jannet’s letters, coming to the conclusion that Jannet was not relating everything, or was reserving her conclusions about her family till she was better acquainted. This Miss Hilliard quite approved.

  Jannet, to be sure, was quite ignorant of Miss Hilliard’s conference in Albany and might have been very much interested in it, especially in one bit of information which she did not possess at this time, that relating to the fact of a second wife.

  CHAPTER XI

  JANNET BEGINS HER SEARCH

  It must not be supposed that “Jannetje Jan Van Meter Eldon” was frightened into leaving her room and fleeing into the newer part of the great house. She felt decidedly uncomfortable after the visitation, or the ghostly phenomena, to which she and Nell Clyde had been subjected. Had Jannet been brought up in the midst of superstition, she might not have been so sure that there was a human cause back of the manifestations, but she was more determined than ever to find out how these things had happened. She was inclined to suspect Jan, though the fact that he had not arrived at the time the blue comforter had disappeared was an objection there.

  “If the boys did do it,” said Nell, that next morning, “it was mean of them, and I don’t see how I ever could forgive Chick for frightening me so.”

  “It was possible for one of them to get into the window, I suppose,” answered Jannet, “and you remember that there was a short time before we got to their door. Jan could have let himself down from the balcony and gotten into his own window in a jiffy. Perhaps he could have thrown the light on the wall in some way, and he certainly could have made those noises, only I scarcely see how they could have come from the direction they seemed to come from unless Jan knows how to throw his voice.”

  “I’m sure that he doesn’t,” said Nell. “I think that it was Paulina!”

  “That could be,” said Jannet. “She looked awfully queer, and she had heard it all, and she wanted us to think that it was ‘Her.’ But I can’t imagine why she would do it. She is so mortally sensible and matter-of-fact about everything else.”

  “That’s the very kind,” insisted Nell. “I don’t think that Paulina is so very smart; besides, Jan and Chick say that she is ‘queer in the bean’.”

  Jannet laughed at this expression. “That sounds like Jan. He has all sorts of slang for every occasion. But I’m not so sure. Paulina may have been scared by things like this long before any of us came here, and you know how stories grow. I’m going to talk to Paulina myself. I’m not going to let this go and not try to find out about it. I may talk to Uncle Pieter, too, but not yet.”

  “Your courage is not quite up to that yet?” laughed Nell.

  “Not quite, Nell.”

  The girls did not have a chance to see how the boys looked and acted that morning, for Paulina called them so late that they missed the boys altogether. Chick had gone home, to meet Jan at the train later, and Mrs. Holt had driven off with Jan, intending to do some errands for him before he started back to school. The maid who helped Paulina gave Nell and Jannet a good breakfast, after which Nell rode home, warning Jannet in farewell not to “do anything rash.”

  Jannet, bare-headed, stood in the rear of the house, waving goodbye to Nell. Then she slowly sauntered up the path which led to the pergola, under her own windows and those of the room in front. “I’m going in there first,” she said to herself.

  Accordingly, she decided to get permission from headquarters, and as she had seen her uncle go into the house a short time before, she crossed the court to the rear of the new building and entered it. Her uncle was just coming out of his library when she met him.

  “Uncle Pieter,” she began, and he stopped in front of her with the air of being in a hurry. “Excuse me, sir—but I have just one little question.”

  Mr. Van Meter smiled a little. “Well, Jannet, you need not be afraid to ask it. I’ll not bite.”

  This made Jannet feel more at home with him and she laughed. “Uncle Pieter, do you care if I go around the old house and find out all about it? I’d like to go into some of the rooms and into the attic, too, perhaps.”

  “You are not afraid of Paulina’s ghosts, then?”

  “Not so very.”

  “Go anywhere you please, my child. Get the keys from Diana, or from Paulina. I’m rather pleased that you should take the interest.”

  “Oh, are you, Uncle Pieter? Thank you so much. I’ll not hurt anything.”

  “From what I have noticed about you, I feel sure that you will not. And Jannet, I have been wanting to talk to you about the plans for our summer and other things. Come into the library after supper. No, there will be some people here. I will see you tomorrow morning about ten o’clock.”

  “Yes, sir,” Jannet replied, and Mr. Van Meter hurried on his way down the hall, into the back entry and outdoors again.

  Her uncle had confidence in her then, and he had noticed her, and she could go anywhere—hurrah! Jannet felt like performing a jig then and there, but somebody might see and be shocked. It would be better to reserve such performances for her own room, whither Jannet sped immediately to think out the campaign.

  First, where were the pearls? Who had taken them? Second, who had played the part of ghost? Why? Or was there such a thing as an unhappy ancestral spirit that wandered around at times? This was not the first time Jannet had asked herself these questions, and now once more she examined her desk, going over every inch of it to make sure that she had not omitted any secret drawer, had not missed any little spring. Again she opened the drawer where the lovely case and pearls had lain. Regret was almost a pain when she saw it so empty.

  It certainly could not have been her uncle, though it was possible. How about Paulina? Cousin Andy—impossible! Cousin Di, likewise impossible. Yet the pearls were gone. Could her uncle have taken them out by a sudden thought of surprising her with them some time? He might think that she could not have found that most secret of drawers. Jannet exhausted in thought the whole range of possibility. Perhaps some one had seen her open the drawer—from the balcony! But her back was toward the balcony—no, she had put on the necklace and gone to her mother’s picture and around the room.

  But who would climb the balcony, other than Jan or Chick or some other boy? Perhaps a burglar—yet nothing else was missed, to her knowledge. It certainly was a mystery. Perhaps she would tell her uncle the next morning. Jannet rather dreaded that interview. For she was used to ladies, her teachers, and knew scarcely any gentlemen except the lawyer in Philadelphia, Lina’s father, and now these relatives.

  After her musings and searchings at the desk, Jannet went all over her room again, looking closely at the paneled walls, and examining the chimney and mantel. She even ran her hands down the boards, to see if there were a spring, and again peered among the sooty bricks inside the great chimney. There was a small closet at one side of the chimney, where tongs and shovel or any necessary paraphernalia might be kept. This was clean and bare and gave no evi
dence of an opening.

  Thinking it likely that Mrs. Holt might be back by this time, Jannet went by the long corridor to where Mrs. Holt slept, but there was no answer to her knock. Then she wandered downstairs again; but Cousin Diana was doing errands and did not get home until after dinner. She was in fine spirits, telling laughingly things that the boys had said before their departure and displaying to Jannet some of the pretty articles which she had bought.

  Jannet went with her to her room to help her with her packages. “Did the boys tell you to ask Nell and me if the ghost walked last night?” queried Jannet on an impulse.

  “Why?” quickly returned Mrs. Holt. “Were they playing tricks on you and Nell?”

  “We think that perhaps they were.”

  “I heard what Jan calls the ‘Dutch Banshee,’” said Jan’s mother, “but I imagine that it is only the wind, whistling in the chimney, or in some odd corner. You don’t worry about ghosts, do you Jannet?”

  “No, Cousin Diana. And that makes me think of what I wanted to ask you this morning. I want to poke around a little and see everything, and I asked Uncle Pieter if he cared. He said he didn’t and that you or Paulina would give me keys. I’d like to see again the front room on my hall, and the attic, too, and anything else that is interesting.”

  “I used to like to poke around in attics, too,” said Mrs. Holt, “but I outgrew that long before I came here. Perhaps there are boxes of your mother’s in the attic, and there may be chests of bygone ancestors—who knows? But you wouldn’t want me to go there with you, would you? I’m not fond of cobwebs and low ceilings to bump my head.”

  How nice Cousin Di was! She knew what girls liked to do. “Oh, no,” said Jannet, “I’ll go by myself. I would love it if there were old chests and trunks that I could look into. But they would be locked, too, wouldn’t they?”

  “I suppose that they will be.”

  Cousin Diana went to her desk and soon handed to Jannet a jingling bunch of keys marked “Attic Keys.” “There are more of them than I recalled. Keep them as long as you want them, but lock everything up when you leave the attic, please, and elsewhere, too.”

  “I will,” promised Jannet, receiving more keys.

  “Not many of the help are in the house at night, but any of them might take a notion to rummage around there by day; and while there can not be anything of any great value there, we do not want to lose what has been thought worthy to keep. I feel a sense of responsibility, now that I am temporarily in charge.”

  “Has Paulina keys?”

  “Yes, I believe so. I have never directed her to clean the attic.”

  “If Paulina wanted to, I don’t believe that she would need to be directed.”

  Cousin Diana answered Jannet’s mischievous look with a smile. “I see that you already appreciate Paulina,” she remarked.

  After leaving her cousin, Jannet went straight to the front room whose great fireplace was a duplicate of hers. Unlocking the door, she stepped inside, finding herself in a large, shadowy room, whose shades were down and whose furniture was draped in coverings. From these swathed chairs, perhaps, came that smell of moth balls.

  A large mirror between two windows revealed dimly her own figure. Jannet put up the shades and opened a window. She intended to look thoroughly for any evidences of the “ghost.” Here was a possibility. Perhaps from this side there could be found some opening. There had been funny noises in that wall, at any rate.

  But never did walls look more innocent. She scanned them closely.

  There was a little closet which corresponded to the one in her room. Another, high and deep, corresponded to her clothes closet. They certainly were large closets, the depth of the big chimney, she supposed.

  Jannet examined the walls of the closets and of the room. She even looked at the ceiling for a possible trap door, though how the ghost could have flown so quickly out of her own room she could not imagine. This was a fine old room, but it offered no solution of her problems, so far as she could see. One thing, however, confirmed her in her idea of some secret passage—the space between the rooms, the size of that great chimney.

  CHAPTER XII

  THE OLD ATTIC

  Jingling her keys happily, Jannet went up the attic stairs, which led from the second floor back hall by a door not far from Paulina’s room. More than once she had heard Jan and Chick clattering down the two flights, first the attic stairs, banging the door shut, then the back stairs from the second floor to the first. If they were not afraid to be up there, why should she be afraid of the attic?

  She did wish for Nell, though on second thought she came to the conclusion that it was just as well for her to investigate alone first. There might be things that some one outside the family could not appreciate. Family was a big thing to Jannet just now. Had she not just acquired one?

  Inserting her key in the lock of the door opposite Jan’s den, she found that it did not turn anything in the right direction to unlock it. She immediately tried the door and found that it was already unlocked. “H’lo, P’lina,” she said, for there was Paulina, bending over a small trunk, her own, without doubt. “Do you keep some things up here, too? Aren’t you afraid of the ghost?” Jannet was laughing as she spoke, but Paulina straightened up and favored Jannet with a stony stare. Then without a word she bent again and locked her trunk.

  Jannet stood quietly, looking around at boxes and trunks neatly placed in this part of the attic, and at dim shapes further along, where boards had been laid over the rafters and lath.

  “You ought not to be up here,” hoarsely said Paulina at last. “I’m going now; come. I want to lock the attic door.”

  “I asked Uncle Pieter for permission,” Jannet returned, “and Cousin Diana gave me these keys. I did not expect to find any one at all here.”

  Jannet dangled her keys before Paulina’s eyes. “Why don’t you think I ought to be here, Paulina? If there is anything wrong with the place, Uncle Pieter ought to be told.”

  “Your uncle knows all that he wants to know,” replied Paulina. She frowned and was obviously displeased at Jannet’s being there. Jannet wondered what she would have thought if Nell had come, too. But Paulina could just get over thinking that she could run everything.

  At Miss Hilliard’s school, Jannet was in the habit of obedience to her elders. Here, too, she respected the authority of her uncle and her cousins, but beyond them, Jannet’s Dutch independence asserted itself.

  “I’m sorry, Paulina,” Jannet said courteously, “that you don’t want me to be in the attic, but I have every right to be here and I shall stay. You need not be worried about anything of yours. I shall not touch your trunk, and if you will tell me what else is yours, I will certainly keep away from it.”

  But Paulina made no reply. She stalked out with her usual stiffness, leaving the door open.

  “Of all the impolite people, you are the worst I ever saw,” thought Jannet, but she did not say it aloud. Perhaps, after all, Paulina’s silence was better than harsh words.

  The field was Jannet’s. What should she do first? She did not quite like to explore the dim recesses, beyond the wider, well floored part, when she was by herself. Perhaps she would reserve that till Nell could be with her. There was a window in this part, shut and fastened with a nail, loosely pushed in. Jannet pulled out the nail, raising the old, small-paned window and finding that it would not stay up. But she saw a piece of wood that must have been used for the purpose and with this she propped the window, letting the fresh air in and also increasing the amount of light, for there was a calico curtain over the window panes, tacked to the frame.

  It was quite neat here, not newly mopped or fresh as the other parts of the house were, but the floor had been swept back as far as the rows of trunks and chests extended. Jannet’s eye was caught by an old single bed, whose length extended along one wall, away from the window. On this were
bundles, of odd sizes, she guessed, from the different bulges in the old cover over the whole, a piece of yellowed, gay-figured percale, or muslin of a sort.

  A rickety rocking-chair, of modern make, and a tall, gray-painted cupboard were the only pieces of furniture that Jannet could see. It was quite evident that her uncle had had all the valuable furniture of an older day put into use, keeping no useless articles to fill the attic. Even the old, old cradle stood in the old kitchen, not far from the old, old settle, with its rockers, too.

  Jannet’s eye, which had become practiced by this time among the so-called antiques, recognized something good in the narrow bed against the wall. That was an old-timer, too; but there was, perhaps, no place for it, or it was not quite ancient enough. Jannet lifted the gay cover to peer beneath. One bundle, newly tied in newspapers not quite covering the contents, showed comforters, put away now for the warmer season. Bundles of longer standing showed dingy in muslin covers.

  These, surely, were not interesting. A long, painted chest whose lock was broken, disclosed piles of extra sheets, pillow cases and other stores of the same kind, when Jannet lifted its worn lid. But the trunks were more attractive in possibilities, and Jannet tried to read the names or letters on their sides. Here was one that must have been her grandmother’s and this big one had her mother’s initials upon it. She would open that pretty soon. And oh, what odd little things those were in the corner, two square, black trunks, if you could call them that. They were more like boxes in size, but they had all the straps of a trunk. And if there wasn’t a little old hair trunk under the two of them! It was a wonder that Uncle Pieter had not taken it down into the kitchen!

  Jannet decided to open her mother’s trunk and looked through her keys, trying several before she found one which would fit the lock. Her mother might have put away the contents just before her marriage, thinking that she would soon be home again to look them over. Jannet pulled the trunk out from the rest, opened the top and drew up the rickety rocking-chair, which she tried carefully before trusting herself to it.